The NCAA ( National Collegiate Athletic Association) tournament, otherwise known as “March Madness,” is an annual division 1 basketball tournament played by both the men and women through the month of March. T
he NCAA primarily gets their revenue of $1.29 billion primarily off of TV rights, ticket sales, and different sponsorship. The single-elimination tournament consists of 68 teams, who compete against each other to be the national champion of the division 1 level in the NCAA.
How are the “March Madness” teams selected? There are two different ways that a team can earn a bid to the tournament. The first way is by receiving an automatic bid for winning their post season conference tournament, which goes on in the 32 division 1 conferences. Therefore, 32 are rewarded with this bid, and are known as automatic qualifiers. The second way is when the selection committee gathers on Selection Sunday and decides which 36 teams have the pedigree to earn an invitation to the tournament. For those of you who don’t know what Selection Sunday is, it’s a 12 person committee who decides what teams will be in the tournament, what they will be seeded, and where they will play. The tournament is also divided into four regional brackets, the South, Midwest, East, and West.
How did “March Madness” get its name? Henry V. Porter who was a high school basketball official in Illinois, was the first person to come up with the name “March Madness.” Although it first got its name in 1939, the name didn’t truly gain attraction till 1982, which is when the term made its way to TV. It officially got its fame when North Carolina (and Michael Jordan) won the NCAA tournament, and Brent Musburger (a sports broadcaster) used it in his coverage on the game. The “Madness” actually refers to the many times a top seeded team will lose to a lower seeded team. This will typically bust brackets for those who choose to predict the outcome of the tournament. A bracket in this case is typically where a person or a group of people choose a winning team for each game in a tournament, as well as the overall winner.
Overall, “March Madness” is the biggest college basketball tournament organized by the NCAA, and on average there are 10 million viewers for each “March Madness” basketball game. This year though, there are 13 different cities that are hosting the NCAA tournament. “March Madness” is broadcasted on many channels like CBS, TBS, TNT, truTV, Max, Paramount+, the March Madness Live App, and YouTube TV. So now that you know all about “March Madness,” who do you think will win?
